Interactive MPEG4 – Who Will Lead the Way?

Both have a deep commitment to standards. "We really believe in standards-based solutions. Two years down the road, rich media will have an even greater presence in the landscape than it is now. If that market is hijacked by a proprietary solution, that's bad for everyone," says Dr. Michelle Kim, Manager of the Composite Media Technologies Group at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center. "Anything that demonstrates and promotes MPEG4 technology in the marketplace is a very good thing." [see Creating Interactive Video With MPEG4 for a tutorial on creating rich media with the IBM toolkit.]

While IBM promotes interactive MPEG4 by making its authoring toolkit freely available for evaluation and non-commercial use, Envivio is doing its own part to promote the technology. The company's EnvivioTV MPEG4 player is free, and nearly ubiquitous. It is the underlying engine that powers the MPEG4 playback in the RealONE, Quicktime, and Windows Media players, as well as on various non-PC devices. Envivio's entry into interactive authoring, called 4Mation, targets the high-end customer with rich features, solid support, and a $10K price tag. "MPEG4 adoption will come from the top-down--from the enterprise and television markets to the general public," expects Envivio CTO Julian Signes.

Both Signes and Kim agree on one thing, it's too hard to learn about interactive MPEG4. "The standard is very geared toward a professional audience and less available to the public," says Signes. Kim echoes this sentiment: "We should make it easier for people to implement this technology."